Sadly we watch as our nation goes through another period of
mourning. It’s difficult enough when
someone loses a family member or close friend to any untimely tragedy, but
these occurrences are somehow different.
It is much easier to understand an accidental death, or even one brought
about in the commission of a crime.
Attacks aimed at ordinary citizens due to a difference in ideology, brought
about by propaganda, indoctrination and misinformation, are much harder to
understand. In the case of attacks, such
as 9-11, and the recent Boston Marathon bombing, the loss of life, limb, and
peace are attacks against us all as a nation.
They are in fact an attack upon the whole of humanity brought about by
irrational hatred.
The saying “The pen
is mightier than the sword” is as true today as at the time of its origin. The only difference is the speed at which
ideas can be spread and expanded upon and the pen and paper has been replaced
by electronic communicative devices. The
Russian premier Nikita Krushchev predicted that Communism would defeat our way
of life, not with weapons but with propaganda. The insidious creeping of hidden
indoctrination evidences itself daily.
It is very easy to be aware of the effects of indoctrination in other
ideologies when we see them acted out in violence. It has always been easier to see the splinter
in our enemy’s eye than the log in our own.
What we fail to see in ourselves may be much more heinous than the
violence perpetrated by others.
The danger of losing our country and way of life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness, to acts of physical violence is minimal. The loss of those ideas we hold dear,
nationally, are being eroded by propaganda promoted by our news media, the purchase
of voter base through appeasement, the promotion of skewed values and
historical misinformation put forward by our educators. Our nation, assuredly, is attacked from the
outside but the real danger is within.
That danger is self-inflicted ignorance because we are too lazy or lack
the time to explore and seek the truths and dispel the falsehoods. It is far too easy to look at the United
States as good or bad. We have been led to believe one or the other and the
real fact is that throughout our history we have been both. When our sources of information are tainted
by educators, parents, preachers and peers our beliefs may or may not have
validity. If it is important we owe it
to ourselves to seek the truth and we owe it to our children even more so.
I believe that within each of us exist the seeds of both
good and evil. Whichever receives the
most food will become predominate. I
think that the reason most radical purpose is generated in the young is because
they are the most susceptible to whatever is fed into their minds. That is one reason Communism, fundamentalist Islamists,
and anti-American sentiments are so prevalent in today’s world. Whenever there is a collective dictatorship,
the first thing that is eliminated is any source of knowledge that disagrees
with those in control. That can be seen
in countries all over the world. That
used to be why our form of government was feared by communist and socialist
nations. Control of the educational
system is the only way the future can be swayed in the direction of an ideology.
Eventually those educated become the
educators. A self-perpetuating trek
toward either a individual dictator or a government controlled by a few at the
top of a bureaucratic food chain.
We can look at the young people involved in acts
of terrorism and ask how anyone can hate enough to kill innocents. The answer is simply that they were taught to
hate and in their young minds the acting out is a form of heroism. They see the enemy not as a living human
being but simply as an enemy, a thing not a life. In this we can see the true effect of
indoctrination and propaganda. We need
to beware. Our own society is in a
period of flux, deeply into the educational indoctrination and media propaganda
stages. Not so much in terms of
government but in terms of restructuring our society to the point of submission
